The music is similar to those popular in the UK and US at the time, despite the turbulent politics as Hitler came to power.

It reminds me of the original newspapers I have from the French Revolutionary Terror of the late 18th Century - along with accounts of the trials and executions are reviews of the latest stage plays and recently published novels.

It's a Metropolitan Opera premiere— an opera I've never heard or heard of before. Donizetti wrote Maria Stuarda.

The lives of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her cousin, Elizabeth I, lend themselves perfectly to an operatic treatment. Truth, in this case, is every bit as good as fiction.

It's not entirely surprising that it took an Italian to recognize the fact— to England's shame.

The politics and blood of their reigns are too close to divisions in England and Scotland even now. Mary Queen of Scots was used by ambitious men wanting to overthrow Queen Elizabeth and restore a Catholic monarchy. But too much blood had already been spilt. Mary Queen of Scots would have continued to be a threat.

When we we first married, our house was within 50 yards of a memorial to local farmworkers who had been burned at the stake for being reluctant to change back to Catholic. I doubt that some of them even knew what they were being burned for.

Canterbury has a Castle. It is not well preserved or revered. Too many Canterbury citizens, Catholic and Protestant, starved to death within its walls.

When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, some fanatical Scots blew up letter boxes because they showed her as QEII, and she is the first Queen Elizabeth of Scotland.

PS The sister Queens Mary and Elizabeth are side by side in Westminster Abbey.

“You always own the option of having no opinion.
There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control.
These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.” ~ Marcus Aurelius